“Can you read it again? PLEASE?” 

Frigid temps and gray days lead to lots of reading as we weather the winter season.

As February unfolds, I am thrilled to present a series of STEM books guaranteed to educate, enrich and entertain early learners while the snow flies.

It’s difficult to find books that balance exceptional educational content with engaging storylines, but these books deliver on both fronts.

Each book on this list is so good that you won’t mind when your young STEM explorers beg you over and over to “read it again“!

The Storytelling Math series features children using math during their daily adventures as they play, build and explore the world around them.

These delightful stories go beyond common early math topics such as counting and shapes to explore topics such as patterns, categorizing and spatial reasoning—topics that lay the foundation for later math success but are rarely included in early math books and learning materials.

This series focuses on math concepts that young children encounter in their daily lives. Packed with content that will introduce your early learners to patterns, spatial relationships and everyday math vocabulary words, these little gems also reflect the diversity of our world with characters, authors and illustrators from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Each book concludes with suggestions for further math exploration.

I love the whole series but the books featured here are our favorites!

Our most requested book in this series is Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers. This book has inspired discussions about siblings, educated us about the holiday traditions of our friends and neighbors, introduced us to patterns and engaged us in problem-solving activities. In this celebration of Raksha Bandhan (a Hindu festival honoring the sibling relationship), the youngest sibling, Bina, is determined to make bracelets for each of her three brothers. Vijay loves blue but doesn’t like green. Siddharth is fond of green but can’t stand orange. Arjun likes orange but is sick of blue. With three colors to work with, Bina works hard to get the bracelets just right. This book often leads to requests for beads as we work on our own bracelet patterns, which adds Art to our endeavors for a full STEAM experience.

As much as my gang loves bracelets, I love Usha and the Big Digger—a beautifully illustrated tale about a girl who loves trucks. This book addresses rotation, geometry and spatial relationships, along with looking at things from different perspectives. Cousins survey the same part of the night sky and see different constellations on a starry night. After they switch vantage points, they each see what the other has seen. As the cousins rotate, they see the Big Dipper rotate too. This book features Indian-American characters, as well as insights into different cultures, their interpretations of constellations and their stories about the stars. When storytime is over, you’ll find some fun STEM activities to extend the learning—as well as a great tutorial on how to do a cartwheel.

We are big fans of Sara Levine and her many science books, so I knew that we were in for a treat when I saw that she was one of the authors in the Storytelling Math series. In her book, The Animals Would Not Sleep!, it’s bedtime for Marco and his stuffed animals, but the animals will have none of it. When Marco tries to put them away, they fly, swim and slither right out of their bins. Marco tries sorting the animals in different ways, but nothing works and the animals start getting cranky. How can Marco make everyone happy and put an end to the mayhem? He thinks like a scientist to come up with a solution. This is another favorite that will stimulate plenty of discussion and help build problem-solving skills. It will also pave the way for some fun stuffed-animal play in your classroom!

Having a cloudy week and need a little bit of inspiration? Reach out to your library for any of these wonderful titles. They are guaranteed to enliven your learning and lift children and adults alike out of the February doldrums. Enjoy your winter reading adventures!

Storytelling Math was developed in collaboration with the math experts at the STEM education nonprofit, TERC, with support from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Looking for a great resource for multicultural picture books? Check out Diverse Book Finder, the go-to resource for librarians, educators, parents and others interested in creating picture-book collections that reflect the diverse cultures and lifestyles of the children who read them.

The notion of the “traditional nuclear family” with 2 parents (a mom and a dad) and 2.5 children (1 boy and 1 girl- not sure who the .5 is) still exists, but it is no longer the norm.  Families come in all shapes and sizes.  We meet single parents, extended families, unmarried couples, second families, extreme age differences, teenaged parents, and single-sex couples (who may or may not be married depending on what state you live in, or what their personal choices are).  

The strategy I want to focus on for working with diverse parents is simple.  Be MINDFUL of who you are serving in your program and be THOUGHTFUL about how you serve them.

During my second year as a director of a preschool, I realized that all of our family forms had very specific questions that were limiting and exclusionary.  There was a line for Mother’s Name and then next to it there was a line for Father’s Name.  With a simple edit, we changed those forms to say Parent/Guardian’s Name and Parent/Guardian’s Name.  This felt so much more inclusive and fair and it applied to all of the grown-ups that might be caring for a child.

In addition, we added another question that asked about “all of the grown-ups who care for the child” so that extended family, godparents, cousins, older brothers and sisters and anyone else who played a role in caring for the child,could be included on the form.

It is also really important to remember how children feel when a program insists on making “Mother’s Day” presents in May, and then “Father’s Day” gifts in June.  For many children, those traditional roles may not exist, and because they are so young, they may not have the emotional capacity and cognitive ability to make sense of these differences.  Since I am not a fan of holiday curricula anyway, I would just nix those events.  I would, in turn, have family events that are designed to celebrate all families.

Remember, family are the people who love you.

BTW- I just did a Google search for a great image of a diverse family and the first 100 images that came up, were the old-school definition of family.  So Sad.

The above image is a family portrait created by famed Chicago artist David Csicsko.  This is from a series called Pass the Peace.  Check out his work.  Magnificent. He also did the art for the fabulous children’s book The Skin You Live In.

The first thing to remember when serving a family that includes a child with special needs is that that family may need more emotional support and understanding than other families.     Because we work with children who are still so young, it may be possible that the family is still coming to terms with their child’s diagnosis and learning how to cope with the long-term ramifications of their special need.  They may still be looking for support networks and special services available to them. They may still be trying to understand the laws that will protect their child.  They may need help navigating all of this.

It is also crucial not to judge parents who may still be “wishfully thinking” that this situation might go away.  Rather than thinking that they are “in denial,” remind yourself that hope is a powerful emotion and parents are entitled to it.  Allow them the time they need to let things unfold as they will.  Nothing that you say, will change the course of events that are to come.

Child care providers should develop their own set of trusted resources that can be passed along to parents, as needed.  Create a “Community Resource File” that includes local specialists (speech, OTs, PTs), Family Advocates, Pediatricians, Dentists, Tutors, Testing Centers, etc. , so that you have the information on hand, just in case you need it.

Remember, some parents may have already had a series of interactions with professionals before meeting you.  They may already feel overwhelmed and under supported.  You can change that by reaching out, without judgement, and offer a supportive hand as they negotiate this new terrain.

Today, I thought I would share the definition of “Human Diversity” that Harold Washington College developed for Assessment purposes.  It took ages for us to come up with the exact wording that was both inclusive and broad, as well as current and cohesive.

It reads…

Human Diversity is defined by such things as: age, citizenship, education, ethnicity, gender, health, language, marital status, national origin, political beliefs, physical attributes and disabilities, race,religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other differences in cultural expression and tradition.